“Gods tend to be selfish. Even when they're helpful, they always have their own motives. That's why you have to be careful about trusting them.”

— Rick Riordan , book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Rick Riordan 1402

American writer 1964

Patrick Lencioni (1965) American writer

Source: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

“They're using them as shields. It's a horrible thing. They're using them as shields. But we're fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the terrorists. You have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives. Don't kid yourself. But they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out their families.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

When asked how he would deal with civilian casualties. In an interview with Fox & Friends. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/trump-kill-isil-families-216343 (December 2, 2015)
2010s, 2015

“[G]overnments always need enemies, even when they're not at war. If you don't have a real enemy, you make one up and spread the word. It scares the population, and when the people are scared, they tend not to step out of line.”

Paul Auster book Oracle Night

Paul Auster, Oracle Night, New York: Henry Holt and Company, p. 168.
Oracle Night (2003)

“Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings — much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Source: Adam Bede (1859)
Context: These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people — amongst whom your life is passed — that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire — for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience. And I would not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields — on the real breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice.
So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity, which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread. Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin — the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings — much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.